URGENT SUPPORT TO SPONSORED FAMILIES AND SITE STAFF IN HAITI
Chalice has been serving children in Haiti since 1999. We currently have three sponsor sites: Haiti North and Haiti South sites on the far coasts, and St. Dominique, which is near the capital of Port-au-Prince. We have just over 3400 sponsored children across the three sites.
This social and political turmoil has been fomenting and escalating since 2018 when the fuel shortage became a crisis and violent demonstrations became more frequent. In 2021, president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated.
Gang control over the movement of people and goods, especially food and fuel, has placed most families in severe food insecurity. Haitians are afraid to leave their homes; school attendance is plummeting, and rates of unemployment are very high.
Gang activity has been most prominent in Port-au-Prince, but the dangers have been throughout the country. The violence and risk to the sponsored children escalated again in April 2023.
These conditions are endangering the lives of sponsored families and site staff. They cannot meet their basic needs for survival. Families are uprooting and moving to safer neighborhoods and communities.
Throughout, the Chalice sponsorship program has been a lifeline. But the level of emergency has risen even further, and the sites and families need additional funds to get through this critical period.
We are asking for your support for emergency site and family needs resulting from or created by the conflict. Such needs could include but are not limited to food, water, medical needs, housing needs, transportation, and any other urgent needs.
Chalice will oversee the sponsor site staff and families in their use of your donated funds.